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PHOTOS: Liquor prices in California vs. liquor prices in Washington

Sale prices of various 1.75lt spirits in California. (Photo taken June 18, 2011)

I was in a grocery store in California recently and I walked past the alcohol pictured above. I was shocked at the seemingly low prices of the 1.75lt (half-gallon) containers of spirits.

Unsure if those prices were actually a good deal, I went to my local liquor store here in Seattle a couple days later and looked at their prices.

The prices in California are well below the prices in Washington State because California allows privatized liquor sales — Washington does not.

On May 20th, 2011 Initiative 1183 was filed requesting that alcohol in Washington State be privatized.

I-1183 asks that spirit sales be taken out of the hands of the state government so they can focus on other priorities, and allow retailers that have more than 10,000 sqft of enforced retail space within a single structure to sell hard alcohol instead. A percentage of the spirits revenue would be given to the state. Also, fines and license suspensions for selling to minors would be twice as strong.

I’m not here to support or reject the notion of privatizing alcohol. Rather, I’d like to show you the prices of privatized alcohol in California, and compare them to the prices in Washington State which can only be purchased in state-run liquor stores.

In California, you can walk into nearly every grocery store and purchase spirits at competitive prices. Like some grocery stores in Washington, you can use of their “club cards” and receive discounts on particular items; including liquor in California. The California prices listed here are after the club card savings for the particular grocery store that I’ll leave unnamed.

Remember, I’m only comparing the prices, not the system in which alcohol is sold.

Seeing that California’s budget deficit was recently reported at $9.6 billion, I don’t think I’d want anything from California coming up to Washington other than a couple of their sunny days — and maybe one of their NBA teams.

I included the 9.75% California sales tax to the prices listed for California. The Washington State prices from the liquor store already include tax.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.